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So this is how the story goes. In 1826 a London merchant decides to buy some cloth from a weaver in Hawick, a town in the Scottish borders famous for its cloth production. Very happy with his order, he decides to get some more but – crucially – misreads the weaver’s dashed handwriting. Instead of ‘twill’ this Londoner reads ‘tweed’, and assumes this new cloth must take after the River Tweed which runs fast and clear through the textile areas of lower Scotland. ‘Tweed’ and not ’twill’ has been the term used ever since.

“The St. Lawrence is mere water. The Missouri muddy water. The Thames is liquid history.” So declared John Burns – a great advocate of London’s history – when asked to compare the Thames against those other great rivers in 1929. Forty years earlier in 1889 Burns had been a towering figurehead of the Great Dock Strike, thus sealing his own place in those murky waters. As the 125th anniversary of the strike approaches (14 August – 16 September) it feels an opportune moment to reflect on what this particular passage of liquid history might mean today.

Sherlock Holmes, the most famous fictional Londoner of all time, is also one of the most portrayed characters in film and television history. He has appeared onscreen for over a century, with the role assumed by countless actors – from William Gillette to Benedict Cumberbatch. As the Museum of London prepares for the largest temporary exhibition on the super sleuth for over sixty years, there remains a mystery unsolved regarding one such film.

By Meriel Jeater, Museum of London Curator Here is a brief snapshot of some research I have recently undertaken to understand the evolution of London’s city wall. A section of the Roman city wall still survives in a garden outside the Museum of London. I mention these remains on my tours of the Roman fort gate, which still exist in a room next to the London Wall car park. It is sometimes tricky to explain to visitors why the wall, while having Roman origins, is made mostly from Victorian brick and includes two medieval towers. The short answer is that […]

One of our hand-drawn London artists, Paula Simoes, discusses the process of creating her map and where it led her… The prospect of creating a hand-drawn map of London was compelling from the start. This was an opportunity for individuals to depict their own interpretations of the city , a personal response allowing unique observations and experiences to shape each map. The first step was deciding which perceptions to include – filtering these out from a cornucopia of memories and interactions with my native city. Introducing a theme helped me do just that. Toilets were an obvious subject matter to portray, […]